


Excruciation

by lirin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cruciatus Curse, Gen, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24199042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: There was a shivering first-year Gryffindor standing at the front of the classroom when Neville walked into Dark Arts class. That was never a good sign.
Relationships: Neville Longbottom & Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Excruciation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/gifts).



> _"We're supposed to practice the Cruciatus Curse on people who've earned detentions..." said Neville... "I refused to do it." —Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, chapter 29_

There was a shivering first-year Gryffindor standing at the front of the classroom when Neville walked into Dark Arts class. That was never a good sign.

He sat down at his desk and debated whether or not to make eye contact with the kid. Would it make him feel less alone, or would it be better to avoid drawing attention to him? Professor Carrow turned his back for a moment to do something with the window, and Neville risked a momentary smile and nod. But it was wasted; the kid had his eyes firmly focused on the ground and didn't notice Neville at all.

Seamus came in and sat down at the desk next to Neville. "What do you suppose he did?" he whispered. "Snuck food from the kitchens? Two minutes late heading to the common room after hours? I don't think it was anything to do with the D.A., or we'd have heard about it."

Carrow strode across the classroom, so Neville didn't dare reply. Instead, he pulled his notes out of his bag and shuffled them around, trying to look studious. Given that he'd scarcely filled half a sheet of parchment over the last month (not deeming pronouncements like "Cruciatus is particularly effective on Mudbloods" worthy of memorization), however, the effect was rather dampened. But regardless, Carrow passed him by. He walked to the door, closed it, and continued on to the front of the room where the frightened first-year boy stood.

"This is Philip Barron," Carrow announced. "I caught this sniveling little half-blood passing notes in my class this morning. So I've assigned him detention, and you students are going to help with that."

That was the other reason that Neville had only filled up half a sheet of notes. Carrow took every opportunity to avoid lecturing in favor of practical exercises in the Dark Arts. If Neville had actually wanted to learn the subject, he would have been frustrated by Carrow's scattered teaching style, which lacked the foundation that would make practice valuable. As it was, he hated Carrow's teaching style for entirely different reasons. He kept his eyes fixed on the edge of his desk, and waited with trepidation for Carrow to continue.

"Who would like to assist me?" Carrow asked, all too predictably. 

On the other side of the classroom, Crabbe's and Goyle's hands immediately waved in the air, but Carrow ignored them. That was never good. Philip sniffled loudly.

"Neville Longbottom," Carrow said, and Neville willed himself not to flinch. "You know all about the Cruciatus curse, don't you? Because of your parents." Neville clenched his fists. "Why don't you demonstrate it for us. On Barron here."

Neville's first impulse was to keep staring at his desk and pretend he hadn't been listening. But that wouldn't make Carrow give up, now would it save Philip. So if Carrow wanted to make an example of somebody, Neville might as well set an example. He stood up, and cleared his throat. "I'm not going to do that. It's not an appropriate detention punishment, it's not a useful enough spell to spend as much time practicing it as we've been this last month, and additionally"—Neville raised his chin and looked Carrow right in the eyes—"you're right. I know all about the Cruciatus curse, because of my parents, and I know they'd be disappointed if their son was the kind of person who used it. I don't want to be an embarrassment to my parents, and I don't want to be someone who stoops so low as to use the Dark Arts."

Carrow raised his wand slightly. Behind him, Philip was staring at Neville, his eyes wide. Well, Neville had wanted him to know he wasn't alone; this just wasn't the way he'd planned on achieving that. He gripped the side of his desk, wondering if Carrow would change his mind about who to demonstrate Cruciatus on next. He told himself that it would be a good thing if Carrow did, and forgot about torturing a little kid. 

But he didn't think he could count on Carrow to forget. And he really, really didn't want to experience Cruciatus. Ever since he'd first heard about it, when he'd been too young to fully understand what they were talking about, he'd thought it was the worst thing imaginable. And then when he'd been fifteen, he'd finally experienced it, and it had been as horrible as his worst dreams of it. But he was seventeen now. He was bigger and stronger than an eleven-year-old, he told himself. It would be okay. It had to be.

"Are you questioning my judgment?" Carrow snarled. "I'm your teacher!"

"Absolutely," Neville said. "If you can't maintain class discipline without resorting to dark curses, you're not a very good teacher, are you?"

 _"Diffindo!"_ Carrow replied, and Neville's first impulse was relief. Not _Crucio_. Then he realized his cheek was stinging in pain. He raised a hand to his face, and felt stickiness welling up.

"See? I can maintain class discipline with light spells, too," Carrow said. "Sit down. Crabbe, Goyle, why don't you demonstrate your skills with this curse on Barron."

"Yes, sir!" Crabbe said, jumping up. Goyle followed him.

Neville's knees started to crumple underneath him, and Seamus reached out a hand to help him back into his seat. Philip was still staring at him, eyes wide and face bloodless, and Neville knew there wasn't a thing more that he could do to help him. Not the way this school was run nowadays.

 _"Crucio!"_ Crabbe said excitedly, and Philip broke their eye contact, head jerking backwards. He began to scream, a high-pitched, tearing sound.

"You were brilliant!" Seamus whispered.

 _"Crucio!"_ Goyle said in turn. He stood next to Crabbe, and both of them held their wands pointed at Philip, who had fallen to the floor and was writhing there, still screaming as if his heart was being ripped out by their bare hands.

Neville shook his head. "It didn't achieve anything," he whispered back. If he'd followed Carrow's instructions and been the one to hurt Philip, he wouldn't have put him through nearly as much pain as Crabbe and Goyle were doing now. Maybe that would have been better, to play along. Wasn't playing along all that they were doing these days?

Except he shouldn't fool himself. He wouldn't have been able to cast the spell at all, wouldn't have been able—even if he'd wanted to—to put the meaning behind the words. Carrow wouldn't have been satisfied, and he would have called up Crabbe and Goyle all the same, and Neville might have saved himself a cut on the cheek but the hurt he would have gotten in his heart wouldn't have been worth the tradeoff.

Neville dabbed his cheek with a handkerchief, stared at his notes, and tried to block out Philip's terrible screams. Classes like this were always the ones that seemed to last forever.

* * *

"Class dismissed," Carrow said finally.

Neville and Seamus jumped up immediately and hurried out of the classroom, most of the other Gryffindors in their wake. The Slytherins were in much less of a hurry; Neville could hear Crabbe still in the room, crowing about how well he was doing in the class.

"Come on, let's go find something to do to take our minds off of things," Seamus said, shoving his untouched notes into his bag as he walked.

Neville shook his head. "You go on. I've got something I need to do."

Shoving his handkerchief in his pocket—the bleeding seemed to have slowed, at least—he stepped behind one of the pillars that lined the corridor, in case his Slytherin classmates or Carrow came along while he was waiting. But as he had hoped, it was Philip who came through the classroom door next.

He was still crying. He looked so small; Neville found it hard to believe that he himself had ever been that small when he'd come to Hogwarts. Back then, he'd found Hogwarts frightening, but all those fears seemed so far away now. Even Snape hadn't been nearly as awful in those days, and the worst spell Neville had been hit by had only been the Body-Bind Curse.

Neville stepped out from behind the pillar. "Can I walk you to the hopsital wing?"

"I don't want to go to the hospital wing. Crabbe and Goyle might know to look for me there. Amy said that Johnny said that sometimes they find students and go for a second round because they know Professor Carrow and Headmaster Snape won't stop them."

"Back to the common room, then. No Slytherins can get in there."

"Um," Philip said. "I suppose I'd better."

"I'll walk with you, just in case," Neville said. "And remember, it may not feel like it, but the majority of the people here are still on our side."

He kept his wand drawn for the entire walk, regardless of how many people might or might not be on their side. It couldn't hurt, and he hoped it would make Philip feel safer. (And one of these days, maybe even someday soon, somebody would go too far and Neville would have to use magic as if there was a war on and not as if they were still pretending that this was just a school full of people who didn't hate each other. But not yet. For now, Neville would pretend he cared about the school rules and he wouldn't Stun Alecto Carrow and Crabbe and Goyle and everyone else who deserved it.)

* * *

As soon as they reached the empty Gryffindor common room, Philip stumbled to the nearest couch and crumpled onto it. Neville had planned to go right away to get supplies to patch both of them up, but he couldn't bring himself to leave Philip all alone. He sat down next to him on the couch and, being careful to make his movements very obvious and predictable, he reached out a hand and laid it on Philip's arm. "You were really brave just now," he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't help more. This isn't what Hogwarts ought to be like."

"I don't think I belong here," Philip sniffled. "I'm not cut out to be a wizard. I'm only a half-blood."

"Sure, I don't think any of us belong here right now," Neville said. "The only people who feel at home at Hogwarts these days are psychotics like the Carrows and Crabbe and Goyle. But don't listen to all their lies about blood. You've got as much of a right to be here as anybody who has completely pure blood, and so have all the Muggleborns who aren't even here this year. If you can use magic, then you belong at Hogwarts, and you'll learn to be a wizard. Pretty much every first-year worries that they're not cut out for it from time to time, 'cause you see all the people older than you doing things that you have no idea about. But you've got six more years to learn all of that stuff, and hopefully if You-Know-Who is defeated, they'll be a lot funner years than this one was." Neville wasn't sure of the chances that Harry would actually be able to defeat Voldemort, but it didn't do to give up hope. Maybe Philip really would be able to have a normal school experience.

"Has it been fun for you? Up till this year, I mean?"

Neville thought for a minute. Huh. It had. For the most part, it really had been fun. "Well, Snape's been teaching here the whole time," Neville said, "and he was never much fun." He chuckled, and wasn't that an improvement? His first-year self would never have believed he could laugh about Snape. "And I kept losing my toad and I didn't do well in some of my classes. But I got better, and I've learned a lot. And I've made some friends. Good, strong ones."

"I've made friends, too," Philip said. "Clarence and Amy and Blanche."

"I think I've met them," Neville said. "You all study together in the common room sometimes, right? At that table over there."

"Yeah," Philip said. "It's a lot easier to understand everything when we talk it over. We were trying to help each other understand the topics in Dark Arts class—not that I want to be good at the Dark Arts, you know, but if I understand it then I can know what to avoid and I can keep my grades up, too. That's why we were passing notes."

"What happened to the others?" Neville asked. "Did they get detention, too? Do I need to go look for them?"

Philip shook his head. "I was the only one Carrow spotted. I had folded the note up and was about to toss it across the room to Amy, but she wasn't looking at me so I waved it around a bit. That's when he saw me, but since Amy wasn't looking at me yet he didn't know who I was trying to pass it to. I was worried he'd be able to guess it was for her, but I don't think he's actually that smart."

Neville chuckled again. "Yeah, I don't think he is. He's not a very good teacher, either; it's not your fault that you're not understanding if he teaches your class at all like the way he teaches seventh year."

Philip smiled slightly, then winced. "That's good, I guess."

"I'm glad you were able to protect your friends," Neville added. "I'd better go find some first aid supplies. You wait here."

"You won't be gone long?" Philip called after him as he headed for the stairs.

Neville turned around and gave him what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "I'll be right back, and we'll get you all patched up so you feel much better." It was the least he could do, since he hadn't been able to stop Philip from getting hurt in the first place.

Madam Pomfrey had given him a tin with an Extension Charm on it near the beginning of the year. "In case you're ever in a position where you need it and you'd rather not come to me, dear," she'd said. At the time, Neville had stared at the piles of bandages and neat rows of potions and wondered if she was calling him clumsy. But in the months since then, he'd depleted and restocked the tin over and over again, and hardly any of it had been for use on himself. Pomfrey slipped supplies to him whenever he found an excuse to visit the hospital wing, and Neville supplemented them with a variety of herbs from Professor Sprout's advice and his own research.

He crawled under his four-poster bed to retrieve the tin. It would be easier if he kept it out on his nightstand—or on one of the three empty beds in the dormitory, now that he and Seamus were the only seventh-year Gryffindor boys remaining at Hogwarts—but he couldn't shake the worry that someone might eventually make up an excuse to search the dormitories. Pulling the tin out, he sat on the floor for a minute, leaning against the side of the bed.

This shouldn't have been him. There were so many Gryffindors better suited to looking after the younger students. Braver, wiser Gryffindors, like Harry or Hermione. Gryffindors that Dumbledore himself had chosen to be prefects, like Hermione or Ron. Gryffindors who knew how to be around little kids because they grew up with siblings, like Ron or Dean. Neville was just a middling student who had somehow convinced the Sorting Hat that he could be brave.

He looked around at the empty room, where only his and Seamus's beds looked lived-in. And that was the crux of the matter: Harry and Hermione and Ron and Dean and so many other people weren't here, and so it was up to Neville. And so he was going to have to do his best to take care of Gryffindor House. He picked up the tin and headed back downstairs.

Philip was still there, alone in the common room since everyone else was still in their last class of the day. He was sitting on the same couch, but he'd pulled his legs up and was sitting with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. His face had lost all of the color it had gained on their walk, and was as pale as when the curse had first hit him.

"You're going to be okay, I promise," Neville said. "I know it feels horrible now, but the pain will fade in time. But until then, I have a few tricks to help it along. We'll start with a general pain-killing potion. And then if there's an area that's particularly painful, I have some numbing cream that you can use. Or we can just rub it all over, I suppose. I don't know how much it will help...theorists are divided on whether Cruciatus affects the nerve endings or whether its effect is directly on the brain. But we might as well try it." He sorted through the tin, setting some of its contents on the couch between them. "Here's the potion. That's a one-dose bottle, so go ahead and drink the whole thing. Do you want to try numbing cream?"

Philip nodded, his mouth a thin line. "My arms hurt the worst."

"Okay, roll up your sleeves." Neville took Philip's left arm gently in his hand and measured two thumbfulls of the cream onto the inside of his wrist. He began to spread it up Philip's forearm, and almost instantly lost all feeling in the hand he was using to spread it. He hoped it was doing the same for Philip's pain.

"Carrow said," Philip started to say, then stopped.

"Am I hurting you?" Neville asked after a few seconds, when Philip was still silent. He was halfway to Philip's elbow by now. His hand felt very odd, as if it would be tingling if he could feel it, except that he couldn't feel it, so it was more of an absence of non-tingling.

"No," Philip said quickly. "No, that feels good. I think it's helping. Professor Carrow said that you knew about the—the curse, because of your parents. And you know that theory you mentioned, about how it affects the nerves. Um, how did you know?"

"My parents fought with the Order of the Phoenix in the First Wizarding War," Neville said. The words felt stark in his mouth, but it was easier to talk about them than he'd thought it would be. "They had that curse used on them, for...for a very long time. They're still alive, but it...broke them. I was just a kid then, barely more than a baby. My grandmother raised me. I never had a chance to know my parents as people with hopes and dreams, just patients in a hospital ward." Come to think of it, this probably wasn't the best topic for conversation. Neville looked up at Philip. "But that was only after they'd been tortured for a very long time. You're going to be fine. Ready for the other arm?"

PHilip held out his right arm. "I'm sorry to make you think about your parents being hurt," he said solemnly.

"It's not your fault," Neville said. "It's Carrow's, and Crabbe's and Goyle's. And most of all, the Lestranges'. But not yours at all."

They sat in silence for a minute as Neville finished rubbing the numbing cream into Philip's arm. Neville's hand had stopped tingling by now, and felt almost as if it wasn't there at all. Philip sighed and leaned back against the back of the couch as Neville let go of his arm. "Anywhere else that's hurting?" Neville asked.

"That was the worst of it," Philip said, though his hands were still trembling slightly. "I think the potion you gave me is kicking in. Nothing hurts as much anymore, I just feel really tired."

"Good," Neville said. "It wouldn't be a bad idea for you to get some sleep. Do you want me to walk you upstairs to your dorm?"

"Not yet," Philip said. "Your face is still bleeding."

"Oh, right," Neville said, reaching up to touch his cheek. He automatically used his numb hand and so felt nothing, but when he brought his hand away there was red on the fingertips. "It's okay," he told Philip. "It was worth it."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt," Philip said. "You should take some of that potion you gave me."

Neville nodded. Now that he'd been reminded of the injury, the forgotten pain blossomed again. He realized his head had been throbbing for a while.

Philip was digging through the tin. "I'm not really sure how to bandage a cut that big," he said. "There's some plasters in here, but they're too small. And then there's some gauze, but I don't know how to get it to stay."

"Have you learned Sticking Charms yet? Er, you wouldn't have, those aren't till second year, I think."

"I read about them," Philip said. "Clarence and Blanche insist on studying ahead. Here, let me try. _Epoximise."_ He waved his wand at the gauze, and it immediately stuck to his leg. "Oops. Um, would it be okay if I tried it on your face?"

Neville shrugged. "Might as well. I can't use a spell on my own face." If it misfired, he'd just have to teach Philip the counter-spell. Or go down to the hospital wing and just do his best to dodge any Slytherins that might happen to be lying in wait.

Philip took a fresh piece of gauze from the tin, held it against Neville's cheek with one hand, and aimed his wand with the other. His hand was still shaking.

"Take a deep breath," Neville told him. "You're doing great."

Philip breathed in slowly, then huffed his breath out all at once to snap _"Epoximise"_ as he moved his hand in an abrupt zigzag pattern. He took his other hand away from the gauze, and clasped them in his lap. "Um, how's that feel?"

Neville blinked a few times, to make sure that the spell hadn't hit anything it shouldn't have. "Good job," he said. "And thanks."

"Thank _you_ ," Philip said. "And thanks for standing up for me today."

"I'm sorry it didn't make more of a difference," Neville said.

"It made a difference to me," Philip replied. 'I'd rather have Crabbe and Goyle hurt me a hundred times over than you. I wish I was as brave as you."

"You are," Neville said. "That's why the Sorting Hat put both of us in Gryffindor." He collected the last few supplies off of the couch and put them back in the tin. "And Gryffindor House needs to stick together. Why don't you head to bed now and sleep the rest of it off, and I'll go ask the teacher of whichever class you missed for your homework assignment." He closed the lid on the tin, then flipped it back open. "Here, take another dose of the potion with you. If it starts hurting again, as long as it's been at least four hours, you can go ahead and drink this."

Philip nodded. He climbed off of the couch—still moving slowly, but his face was much less pale than before—and headed for the stairs.

"And if it starts hurting again later, come find me!" Neville called after him. "We can use more of the numbing cream, or we can go to the hospital wing, or if you don't want to risk that we can ask one of the paintings to go see if they can find Madam Pomfrey and consult with her."

Philip turned to look back at Neville, and almost smiled. "I will," he said, and stepped into the stairwell.

Neville watched him go. He still would have rather that this year had never happened, and that Voldemort had never returned. But if things had to be as terrible as they were, and if there had to be a war on, he supposed he was glad he was here. That way little kids like Philip didn't have to be alone. He closed the lid of the tin with a decided snap. There were a lot of Gryffindors that needed looking after, and he figured he had just as much a right as anyone to be one of the ones doing the looking after.


End file.
